Poem

Before and after Mayakovsky

A flirtation without legs
barrel rolls across water
No, I said, it’s nobody’s business if we do

O noble environs to the north
of my bathtub, will you please fashion
some of your air into a cigarette?
I am so cold

Why aren’t you coming?
Tell yourself you’re coming. Why
don’t you ever listen to yourself?

Inside the river are new alloys
of Persuasion. We will dig them out and
roast them slowly so as to sever
delicately their freshness and teach them
to beckon like Warner Bros chickens
in pots

In hearts are doves
which always shit
backwards and stuff themselves
and beach sun

It is a good feeling
Good all over

Your cloud in trousers
(this may not be the right word. If not please
supply it) is devastating to me